Social Policy

Exploring the role of technology in Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan, this book compares the ways in which technology is being implemented in different national contexts to contribute effectively to the sustainability of care systems.

What kinds of care are being offered or withdrawn by the welfare state? What does this mean for the caring practices and interventions of local activists? Shedding new light on austerity and neoliberal welfare reform in the UK, this vital book considers local action and activism within contexts of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlighting the substandard living conditions faced by many residents in social housing communities in Ireland, this book provides key information on housing quality at the community level and identifies practical solutions in the health, community care and housing sectors.

This book analyses the political and long-term systemic factors associated with the failures to control COVID-19 in England. Exploring the role of key policy actors, it focuses on two policy failings during the first wave: the establishment of a ‘Test, Trace and Isolate’ system and responses to the high death rate in care homes for older people.

This is the first book to explode the myth of Swedish gender equality, offering both a new perspective for an international audience, and suggesting how equality might be re-thought more generally.

A vital challenge to the internationally accepted policy and practice consensus that intervention to shape parenting in the early years, underpinned by interpretations of brain science, is the way to prevent disadvantage.

Written by experts this important book explores the vital relationships between active citizenship, civil society and the third sector in different socio-political contexts. Drawing on a range of theory and empirical studies the book will be a useful resource for researchers and practitioners.

There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe.

Social marginalisation due to changing labour markets in a global, knowledge-intensive economy poses a major challenge to international welfare states. Addressing the problem from a citizenship perspective, this book contributes significantly to the understanding of policy problems and the development of appropriate strategies.

Experts from around the world review the complex and rapidly changing politics and policies of austerity in this comprehensive collection of essays. The book details the many different means and expressions of austerity since the financial crisis of 2008, as well as backlashes and emerging political alternatives.

Taking a comparative perspective, this book casts new light on the changing inequalities in Europe.

Placing children’s experiences, needs and concerns at the centre of its examination of contemporary policies and political discourses surrounding poverty in childhood, this book examines a broad range of structural, institutional and ideological factors common across developed nations and forges a radical new pathway for the future.